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Saturday, December 31, 2016

The election of Barack Obama, the first black president of the United States, was seen as a landmark achievement for a nation that once dehumanized blacks and held them as slaves. The expectation was that President Obama would lift up the socioeconomic status of blacks throughout the nation and rid the country of its attitudes of racial discrimination and bias.

But the exact opposite has happened. Obama's record of black achievement is not just dismal, it is shocking. Obama's policies have put blacks out of the work force, their unemployment rate has risen. Welfare use and food stamp enrollment have also seen startling and disappointing increases.

At first one could argue that this is because the nation was too prejudiced to allow him to establish any programs that would elevate blacks in the U.S. But this argument cannot be made, since Obama spent and borrowed more money than any government leader in world history, not just U.S. history. How this historical expenditure failed to lift up the economic status of blacks is the most important issue of Obama's presidency, for no other reason than that was his self-avowed goal.

An analysis of Obama's failure to help blacks can only be understood when the long-term policies of Democrats toward blacks are acknowledged. The plain truth is, Democrats have never been concerned with raising the socioeconomic status of blacks. To the contrary, history shows that Democrats have been solely focused on controlling blacks, segregating them into impoverished communities, and restricting their families to lives of poverty, crime, incarceration, and desperation.

The oppressive policies of Democrats toward blacks has a history over two hundred years old. It extends back to the Democrat party's support of slavery in the South. Time and again, at every opportunity, southern Democrats consistently acted to suppress the rights of blacks. For example, when the U.S. was first being formed as a nation, some northern representatives wanted to completely abolish slavery, but their efforts were curtailed by southern slave owners.

When efforts were made to allow slaves to escape to free states, the states' rights movement, led by Democratic politicians like John Calhoun, argued that a slave belongs to his owner no matter if he goes to a free state or not. This states' rights approach is still being seen today when Democrats argue they have the right to promote illegal immigration.

The Civil War was fought to abolish slavery. Two amendments to the U.S. Constitution, the Thirteenth and Fourteenth, were passed to abolish the practice. Abraham Lincoln, the first Republican President, signed the Emancipation Proclamation, freeing blacks from the bonds of slavery.

Democrats have never wanted equality for blacks. In retaliation for losing the Civil War, Democrats in the South started oppressive vigilante groups and wrote laws to hinder the participation of blacks in politics. The laws written to suppress black voting were not banned until the 1965 Voting Rights Act. The 1964 Civil Rights Act was filibustered by Senator Robert Byrd, who was an active KKK leader and recruiter. The KKK was started after the Civil War to intimidate blacks and keep them from voting.

And shockingly, Hillary Clinton, who promoted herself as a protector of civil rights, supported Senator Byrd and called him a man of "nobility," "protector of the constitution" and her "mentor." It is startling that this anti-black agenda of the Democrat Party persists to this day.

During the 2016 presidential election, President Obama and other Democrat leaders started the Black Lives Matter movement. They had the help of financier George Soros, who is most accurately seen as the financier of a resistance movement, the movement of the Democratic Party to resist change in its oppressive institutions. Blacks are no longer held by chains, they are held backby poor education, poor education guaranteed by the institutions of the American Federation of Teachers and the National Education Association. These two organizations have millions of members through the U.S. ensuring that blacks will never overcome the oppression Democrats haveinstitutionalized for them.

Democrats are now renewing their efforts to maintain their control of blacks by introducing the concepts of "white privilege" and "white supremacy." Curiously, they fail to confess that their institutions, established through Democrat government policies, are the real obstacles blacks, and now Hispanics, face.

Liberal Democrats make sure that blacks and Hispanics will never improve their socioeconomic status. An improvement in their socioeconomic status will threaten the Democratic Party's control. The 2016 election was narrowly lost, and Democrats see their only hope as restoring their absolute control of black and Hispanic voters. To do this they are blaming the oppression of racial minorities on Republicans, but Republicans were not responsible for creating the big city ghettoes and barrios where Democrats are now creating a second, oppressed racial group, Hispanics.

In fact, the promotion of illegal immigration and the segregation of illegal immigrants into barrios in Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York proves that liberal Democrats still cling to their principles of impoverishing minorities by race and then using their despair to obtain votes. No one can argue that Democrats respect Hispanics when they say illegal immigrants are in the U.S. to do "low paid jobs no one else will do." This is racist, exploitive, and brutal language, intended to achieve only one goal: to keep Hispanics in poverty, just as they did blacks. In fact, this degrading language toward Hispanics is an exact duplication, a precise resurrection, of the language used to enslave blacks: that people from Africa are needed to pick cotton and tobacco because these are low paid jobs no one else will do.

This intentional degradation of an entire group of people is shocking to see practiced today, but it has been done with such subtlety and rhetorical sleight of hand that it has worked.

When these facts of history are combined with the rhetoric and actions of liberal Democrats today, the true nature of their scheme can be understood: that they, and they alone, have institutionalized white supremacy, in order to maintain their political power. Political power enables them to control these two racial groups and guarantee political power far into the future.

Anyone who argues that these are not facts needs to review the history of the Democratic Party's abuse of blacks, and explain how, after spending more money than any government leader in history, Obama totally failed to elevate the blacks of the U.S. The only explanation is: it's far too important to the Democrats to keep the black and Hispanic vote for them to allow these two groups to improve themselves.

Liberal Democrats institutionalized white supremacy by keeping blacks and Hispanics in poverty through government institutions, particularly education and the support of single motherhood through entitlement programs. These facts are indisputable.

The only way blacks have improved their lives is to leave, on their own, their institutionalized poverty of place: they have begun to leave the ghettoes of New York and Chicago. Blacks are leaving the cities of the Northeast and moving back South.

Who is the real winner in the passing of U.N. Resolution 2334 condemning Israeli "settlements" in so-called Palestinian land? It is not the Arabs who live in East Jerusalem and the West Bank, nor the leftist BDS movement, nor the world community which acted in usual blind lock-step in condemning Israel, or even the Obama administration which sacrificed American stature and credibility to express personal pique, though all appear to be gleefully rubbing grubby hands. The real winner is radical Islam, which the aforementioned parties claim to oppose.

For all the talk of preserving a "two-state" solution between Israel and the Palestinian Arabs, and its attendant equivocating between Arab violence and incitement and the peaceful building of Jewish homes, the real heart 2334 is the first paragraph, which states that the Resolution

Reaffirms that the establishment by Israel of settlements in the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967, including East Jerusalem, has no legal validity and constitutes a flagrant violation under international law…

That "international law" is the creation of U.N. Security Council, which invents such law with the passage of resolutions, regardless of whether standard principles of law-making, such as precedent, judicial or statutory authority are present. If the U.N.S.C. passed a resolution declaring Mars and its "inhabitants" a country, that would be international law. Its resolutions on Israel are almost pure exercises in self-referential circular reasoning. But that does not mean that they are without legal or practical impact, especially when endorsed by the United States, still -- if barely -- the world's preeminent power.

With Resolution 2334 the U.N.S.C. and the United States (thanks to President Obama) have endorsed and enshrined in international law the idea that Jerusalem is a historically Arab city, a bit of myth-making that could have come directly from an ISIS spokesman. For while it is a fact that Jerusalem (East and West) is and mostly has been a Jewish city, about which there can be no reasonable historical cavil, it has been the mission of Islam to convince otherwise.

That Islamic mission is part and parcel of the broader Muslim conception which sees Islam as the true and culminating expression of the god of Abraham. By extension Jews and Christians are, at best, deluded inauthentic monotheists, who may pay to be tolerated by Muslims, but nothing more. Denying Jerusalem's Jewish identity denies its Christian identity as well. Thus, this resolution is as much an attack on Christians and Christianity as it is on "Israeli settlement activity."

A couple days before the passage of the Resolution 2334, historian Bat Ye'or carefully delineated the U.N.'s continuing attack not only on Israel but on the West and Christianity in criticizing last April's Jerusalem Declaration of UNESCO which ignores historical Jewish ties to the Temple Mount and declares the entire area Muslim. Unlike U.N.S.C. resolutions, the decisions of UNESCO's executive council are not considered binding international law, but taken in conjunction with Resolution 2334 that is now the practical effect.

This is yet another example of how Islam, including its most radical adherents, is winning the war of ideas with the Judeo-Christian West, a war that has been going on physically and intellectually since Mohammed's first "revelation" in the early 7th Century.

From the start, Mohammed was acutely aware that to spread the new faith he had to give it legitimacy in the eyes of pre-Islamic pagan Arabs who were already gravitating toward monotheistic beliefs, some tribes having already adopted Christianity or Judaism. Mohammed supplied this legitimacy in large part by tying Allah's revelations to existing belief systems, pagan and monotheistic alike. Thus, the Quran famously references Abraham, Moses, Jesus, and several other notable New and Old Testament figures. Per Mohammed these men were all Muslim prophets whose words and deeds were misinterpreted by the Christians and Jews who created the Old and New Testaments.

So obviously, Christians and Jews have long presented a problem for Islam. Mohammed believed that they would be eager converts to Islam, since they were already monotheists and Allah's "revelations" acknowledged those Christian and Jewish prophets. When this did not happen, Mohammed and his successors variously slaughtered, enforced conversions or reduced the status of the "people of the book" and taxed them.

Jerusalem plays an important role in this process as I explained in detail here. While Jerusalem in not mentioned in the Quran, supposedly, early in Mohammed's time in Medina -- possibly to encourage Jewish conversion to Islam -- Muslims prayed toward Jerusalem. Mohammed gave this up after a few months and turned toward Mecca.

Islam's second caliph, the very capable Umar, captured Jerusalem a few years after Mohammed's death. He deliberately chose the Temple Mount, where the Jewish temple stood and where Jesus walked, as the site of Islam's first work of monumental architecture, the Dome of the Rock. He claimed the space for Islam not only physically, but spiritually, asserting that the rocky outcrop within the shrine was the very rock upon which Abraham took Isaac to be sacrificed, and Muslim scholars began to claim that the "furthest precinct" referenced in the Quran as part of Mohammed's "night journey" was Jerusalem.

Of course, this was a lot of hooey and still is. Certainly, medieval and later Christians didn't buy it, nor Jerusalem's Jews then or now, but evidently President Obama and the U.N.S.C. does. Because between the UNESCO decision and Resolution 2334 it now appears that "international law" (with the concurrence of the sitting U.S. Government) establishes East Jerusalem with the Temple Mount and its ancient Jewish Quarter as historical Arab territory, although it most assuredly is not.

Unlike the New and Old Testaments, the Quran eschews narrative. It is neither a story nor a history. Muslims believe it is the direct revelation of Allah given to Mohammed as Allah saw fit, which is not man's role to question. In failing to veto Resolution 2334 in the wake of the UNESCO move, the United States along with the rest of the international community, has now officially bought into the Islamic version of Jerusalem's history, and with that, effectively the Muslim assertion of divine revelation in support of Islamic activity and the implementation of international law. That is a godsend to Islamic terrorists and they will see it that way too.

Four Cabinet spots still open in the Trump administrationBy Ben Kamisar - 12-31-16 06:00 AM EST

With less than a month before the inauguration, President-elect Donald Trump's Cabinet still has four major spots waiting to be filled.

Trump has picked most of his top Cabinet nominees already. But outside groups are getting restless as they wait to see who will lead the Departments of Agriculture and Veterans Affairs, as well as the U.S. Trade Representative's office and the Council of Economic Advisers.

Here's a look at the leading candidates for those open spots.

Secretary of Agriculture

The race for Agriculture is heating up, with the president-elect entertaining a handful of potential candidates this week.

On Wednesday, Trump met with former Texas A&M University President Elsa Murano and former California Lt. Gov. Abel Maldonado. Both are under consideration for the spot.

Murano knows her way around the department-she spent three years as President George W. Bush's Undersecretary of Agriculture for Food Safety.

And Maldonado helps to run his family's farm in California.

Either candidate would become Trump's first Hispanic addition to the Cabinet, an absence that has grown more obvious as more Cabinet spots have been filled. The National Association of Latino and Elected and Appointed Officials warned Trump this month that the lack of a Hispanic member of the cabinet would be a "historic step backwards."

There are others in the mix too, including Texans Sid Miller, Susan Combs and former Rep. Henry Bonilla. All three met with Trump Friday at his Florida estate.

Miller, the state's current Agriculture Commissioner, has faced his share of controversies-most recently retweeting a vulgar insult about Hillary Clinton.

Combs is the former Texas Comptroller and Agriculture Commissioner. Combs worked in Energy Secretary-designate Rick Perry's administration when Perry was governor.

Bonilla, who served 14 years in the House, chaired the Appropriations Agriculture subcommittee.

While North Dakota Democratic Sen. Heidi Heitkamp has met with Trump about the post, she said in a statement last week that she'd "likely" remain in the Senate.

It's also possible that Trump draws from his Agriculture advisory team for the spot. He met with former Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue last month in New York, while various reports have named former Georgia Gov. Dave Heineman, and Chuck Connor, the CEO of the National Council of Farmer Cooperatives who served as interim Agriculture Secretary briefly under President George W. Bush, as prospective nominees.

United States Trade Representative

Given Trump's emphasis on an "America First" trade policy during the campaign, his pick for the Cabinet-level USTR is being carefully watched.

Campaign officials confirmed earlier this month that Trump is considering Jovita Carranza, who has experience in President George W. Bush's Small Business Administration.

Carranza was a member of Trump's National Hispanic Council and worked at UPS before opening a consulting firm. She met with Trump at his Florida estate shortly before Christmas.

Dan DiMicco and Robert Lighthizer have also been floated as potential picks. Both are helping to coordinate the incoming administration's USTR transition as members of what's called the "landing team."

DiMicco advised Trump on trade issues through the campaign and is the former chair of the steel company Nucor. And Lighthizer has hands-on experience in the USTR's office, serving as a deputy under President Reagan.

Veterans Affairs

A whole host of names have been floated for the spot to lead the VA, which could receive a major shakeup under the Trump administration.

Businessman, Army veteran and former Central American Chamber of Commerce head Luis Qui onez met with Trump earlier this month to discuss the role.

Bloomberg reported that Cleveland Clinic CEO Toby Cosgrove, who withdrew from consideration to head the department under President Obama, is also a top contender for the post.

And The New York Times reported this month that Trump is considering U.S. Navy Admiral Michelle Howard, the leader of Navy forces in Europe. Howard is the first woman to become a four-star admiral in the Navy, as well as the first African-American woman to command a Navy ship.

The president-elect has considered Fox News contributors and analysts for other posts in his administration, and the VA is no exception.

Former Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown told Fox News earlier this month that he is being "considered" for the role. Brown, an Army National Guard veteran, a contributor to the network, was one of Trump's earlier supporters during the primary.

Reporters have also pointed to Fox contributor Pete Hegseth as another potential candidate.

Hegseth previously ran a veterans advocacy group and served in both Iraq and Afghanistan, where he won the Bronze Star. The Fox News regular visited Trump Tower in New York this month to meet with Trump.

Trump made healthcare for veterans a major focus of his campaign, and his transition is already floating some major changes to be enacted by the new VA secretary.

A senior transition official told reporters this week that Trump is discussing reforming the VA to give veterans a "public-private" option, although no decision has been made as of yet.

Council of Economic Advisers

It appears that the race to lead the Council, a three-member group that advises the president on economic issues, is between the frontrunner and the rest of the field.

The leading pick is Larry Kudlow, the former CNBC host and associate director at the Reagan administration's Office of Management and Budget.

Speculation about Kudlow reached new heights earlier this month when Stephen Moore, the economist who helped advise Trump during the campaign, told a Michigan regional chamber of commerce that Kudlow would be appointed "within the next 48 hours," according to the Detroit News.

Kudlow is the only name that has been seriously floated for the position. While no appointment has been announced, he's seen as the odds-on favorite.

President-elect Donald Trump is stocking his administration with businessmen and regulatory reformers who are intent on cutting through what they see as red tape from Washington.

Carl Icahn, the billionaire investor, will oversee the Trump administration's regulatory reform efforts. He will be joined by several other Wall Street investors and corporate executives who have first-hand experience dealing with government rules.

Here are six figures in the Trump administration poised to have an outsized role in scaling back regulations.

Regulatory adviser Carl Icahn

Trump created a new position in the White House for the billionaire investor to serve as a "special adviser on regulatory issues," where he will seek to trim back rules that businesses consider unnecessary and burdensome.

"Under President Obama, America's business owners have been crippled by over $1 trillion in new regulations," Icahn said in a statement issued by the Trump transition team. "It's time to break free of excessive regulation and let our entrepreneurs do what they do best: create jobs and support communities."

Icahn, 80, is the founder of Icahn Enterprises, and has become known over the years as an activist shareholder.

Trump, who has done deals with Icahn in the past, called him "one of the world's great businessmen."

"His help on the strangling regulations that our country is faced with will be invaluable," Trump said in a statement.

Icahn, who holds a majority stake in CVR Energy and has also invested in several other oil and gas companies, has been a particularly vocal critic of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) under the Obama administration.

Icahn has already advised the president-elect on several key appointments, including Steve Mnuchin to the Treasury Department, Wilbur Ross to the Commerce Department, and Scott Pruitt to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), according to The Wall Street Journal.

He is also expected to hold sway over Trump's choice for a new chairman for the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

Commerce Secretary nominee Wilbur Ross

Ross once helped save Trump's casino business.

The Wall Street banker built a career by investing in distressed companies and turning them around. In the 1990s, Ross and Icahn helped finance the president-elect's Taj Mahal casino as bondholders. When the casino ran into trouble, the two men could have foreclosed, but instead negotiated with Trump to keep the business afloat.

"We could have foreclosed [on the Trump Taj Mahal], and he would have been gone," Ross told The New York Post last month.

Trump on Nov. 30 tapped Ross to lead to the Commerce Department on Nov. 30. In that role, he will have a major role in shaping U.S. trade policy, including import and export regulations that companies must comply with.

Both Trump and Ross have taken a hard line against trade deals, saying many of them have hurt American jobs.

Treasury Secretary nominee Steven Mnuchin

Mnuchin's portfolio stretches from Wall Street to Hollywood. He spent the better half of two decades as an investment banker at Goldman Sachs, before becoming a hedge fund manager. At the height of the financial crisis in 2009, Mnuchin purchased a failed mortgage lender that he renamed OneWest Bank.

During his time on Wall Street, Mnuchin butted heads with Trump on a business deal. Dune Capital Management, the hedge fund Mnuchin created after leaving Goldman Sachs, helped finance the construction of Trump hotels in Chicago and Honolulu. But Trump sued multiple lenders, including Mnuchin's company, over a disagreement with the Chicago deal. The case was eventually settled. up.

The two men have since become close allies. Mnuchin served as Trump's national finance chairman during the campaign, a critical role where he helped the businessman quickly construct a fundraising machine.

Trump nominated Mnuchin, who is also a member of the president-elect's transition team, to serve as Treasury secretary on Nov. 30. In the role, Mnuchin will lead the charge against the Dodd-Frank financial reform law.

"We want to strip back parts of Dodd-Frank that prevent banks from lending, and that will be the number one priority on the regulatory side," Mnuchin told CNBC.

Trump and his appointees cannot completely roll back Dodd-Frank without action from Congress, but they will have significant power to change how it is enforced through regulations.

Mnuchin has been particularly critical of the Volcker rule, which prevents large banks from engaging in speculative trading.

Health secretary nominee Tom Price

Rep. Tom Price (R-Ga.), a doctor, will play a key role in the Republican push to scale back ObamaCare.

Republicans plan to pass an ObamaCare repeal bill early in 2017, jumpstarting the process.

As secretary of Health and Human Services, Price will have a chance to reshape the slew of new healthcare regulations that were issued under President Obama. With help from Congress, some of the rules could be eliminated entirely.

EPA administrator nominee Scott Pruitt

As Oklahoma's attorney general, Scott Pruitt led the charge against the Obama administration's climate agenda. Now, Pruitt will be tasked with changing the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from the inside out.

Trump tapped Pruitt to lead the EPA on Dec. 7, putting him in a position to dismantle many of the EPA's most controversial actions under Obama.

Some of the regulations that could be on the chopping block include the EPA's rules for power plants, water, ozone, and fuel economy. But changing any of those rules are likely to set off a major court battle with environmentalists that could rage for years.

Labor secretary nominee Andrew Puzder

Trump's Labor nominee is a long-time restaurant executive. As the head of CKE Restaurants, he runs popular fast-food chains like Hardee's and Carl's Jr.

Puzder is opposed to raising the minimum wage, and has also criticized the Labor Department's policies on overtime and paid sick leave under Obama.

The Labor Department is pushing to expand overtime pay to another 4 million workers. Currently, many employees who make more than $23,660 in a year are not eligible to be paid time and a half when they work more than 40 hours in a week.

But the Obama administration raised the threshold to $47,476 per year. The overtime rule is on hold due to a court challenge.

Republicans say the overtime rule could lead to reduced hours for low-wage workers and fewer opportunities to grow within the company, raising the likelihood that the Trump administration will decline to defend the rule in court, potentially killing it.

Puzder could also target the Labor Department's joint employer policy, which makes it easier for companies to be held responsible for labor violations committed by franchises. That rule was vehemently opposed by the fast food industry.

"Andy will fight to make American workers safer and more prosperous by enforcing fair occupational safety standards and ensuring workers receive the benefits they deserve," Trump said in a statement, "and he will save small businesses from the crushing burdens of unnecessary regulations that are stunting job growth and suppressing wages."

Whole lotta lyin’ goin’ on

Power Line - Saturday December 31, 2016

by Scott Johnson

(Scott Johnson)

By just about everyone’s reckoning, the so-called signature achievements of the Obama years are the enactment of Obamacare and the Iran nuclear deal. They have a lot in common. Both are ruinous and both were built on an edifice of bald-faced lies. President Obama is the lyin’king and these are the lyin’ years.

We recall the foundational lies of Obamacare: If you like your insurance plan, you can keep it. If you like your doctor, you can keep him. Obamacare will save the average family $2500 a year. Obama enunciated these lies in a manner suggesting that anyone who disputed them was an idiot. The compilation below documents Obama’s incessant reiteration of the lie about keeping your health care plan. Our familiarity with it should not dull our contempt for the liar, his partisan allies and his mainstream media adjunct.

The same applies many times over to the Iran nuclear deal. In the first sentence of his statement announcing it (video below), Obama asserted that it constituted “a comprehensive, long-term deal with Iran that will prevent it from obtaining a nuclear weapon.” The truth, however, is that in a best case scenario under the deal, Iran will have nuclear weapons in little over a decade.

The money adds to the shame and humiliation involved in the abjection of the Iran deal. It is indeed worse than Munich; Britain didn’t pay Hitler.

Obama again enlisted the assistance of his mainstream media adjunct in selling the big lie of the Iran deal. Obama national security flack Ben Rhodes even bragged about it to David Samuels.

In the Obama administration’s parting betrayal of Israel in the United Nations we see the same operation at work. We see the mainstream media offering up Ben Rhodes to comment. You might say we’ve been down this Rhodes before. It represents Obama’s modus operandi.

Former MI5 intel agent: Obama Russia claims ‘pure propaganda’

So what makes America look worse on the world stage: the assertion that a foreign government “hacked” our presidential election, or the lie that one did?

Annie Machon, former intelligence agent for the British MI5, tells RT that the latter is what happened.

“This is very much a case of fake news, shall we say. It seems to serve two ends as well,” Machon says.

“On the day when the ceasefire is announced, which has been brokered by Russia and Turkey – this is a story that will run and run in America, not the ceasefire in Syria. It’s all going to be about these Russians, and hacking the election and things like that. I think this is the first stage – this is why it was announced that the Russian diplomats were going to be expelled,” she says.

“On the second point as well, it is a mass expulsion – 35 diplomats being thrown out of the country with no proof, with no sort of real intelligence. I think that has also been done to gain the idea, to solidify in public’s mind in America that actually Russia was involved in hacking the election.

“Where has that phrase evolved from? We don’t know. It was originally just hacking the DNC [Democratic National Committee] e-mails. So I think it is a sort of two-pronged attack that has been carried out; that has been carefully announced today to achieve that,” she says.

“One further point from that in terms of trying to solidify the fact that the Russians interfered in the democratic process of America – is part of this ongoing process to try to undermine the legitimacy of the election of Donald Trump – the next president,” according to Machon.

Machon pointed out the U.S. Department of Homeland Security effectively wouldn’t stand behind its own claims.

A disclaimer on the ranalysis reads, “This report is provided ‘as is’ for informational purposes only. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) does not provide any warranties of any kind regarding any information contained within.”

The former intel agent says the agency, along with the FBI, is just “covering their backs.”

“They know it’s much rubbish…they are trying to blind people with science, but there’s no real evidence,” she says, adding the lack of warranty from the DHS about the claims “points to the fact that it is pure propaganda and they know it.”

Friday, December 30, 2016

“If an American is to amount to anything he must rely upon himself, and not upon the State; he must take pride in his own work, instead of sitting idle to envy the luck of others. He must face life with resolute courage, win victory if he can, and accept defeat if he must, without seeking to place on his fellow man a responsibility which is not theirs.”-- Theodore Roosevelt

The Jewish West Bank settlement of Psagot, foreground houses with red roofs, adjacent to the West Bank city of Ramallah, in 2000. (Eyal Warshavsky / Associated Press)

Joshua Mitnick

For nearly three decades, governments around the world have insisted that the best way to end the most intractable conflict in the Middle East is to trade land for peace, creating an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

But these days, as Palestinians see prospects for the so-called two-state solution disintegrating, a growing number are mulling over a provocative alternative: a single binational state from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean.

The notion is the equivalent of a demographic Trojan horse, forcing Israel either to give Arab residents full voting rights — and jeopardize the Jewish identity upon which Israel was created in 1948 — or risk becoming an apartheid state under permanent sanction by the rest of the world.

U.S. Secretary of State John F. Kerrywarned of the risk Wednesday in what he described as a “fundamental reality” for the two sides to consider: “If the choice is one state, Israel can either be Jewish or democratic — it cannot be both — and it won’t ever really be at peace.”

For Palestinians, the renewed calls to consider a one-state solution come as the peace process is at one of its lowest ebbs. Negotiations have been mothballed for three years, Israeli settlements in the West Bank are under steady expansion, and there are continuing calls by Israeli politicians to annex part of the West Bank.

President-elect Donald Trump’s victory and the prominence of patrons of the Israeli settlements in his close circle of advisors have only compounded the skepticism. A December public opinion poll found that two-thirds of Palestinians believe a two-state solution is no longer feasible.

The alternative, many argue, is an invitation to Israel to swallow Palestine.

“Many people support the idea,” said Mustafa Barghouti, a Palestinian legislator and a former candidate for president. “If the two-state solution is physically unattainable, we have only one option: A struggle to gain full and equal democratic rights in one state, in the land of historic Palestine.”

Once limited to small groups of politically independent weekly protesters against Israel’s military occupation, the idea is now being widely discussed. Palestinian intellectuals, businessmen and political officials who long championed the two-state solution are starting to strategize about what some argue is an already existing one-state reality.

“Because of the lack of a political horizon, the inability of the sides to sit down together, because of the reality on the ground of expanding settlements and road checkpoints, people started to believe that the two-state solution is dead,’’ said Bashar Azzeh, a youth activist and marketing director at the Wassel Group, a Palestinian logistics company.

“Some people are saying: Let’s demand full human and civil rights rather than national rights; then maybe the international community will listen to us.’’

In Al Birah, Ramallah’s twin city, the municipal soccer stadium sits on a ridge just a few hundred yards from the red-roofed homes of the Israeli settlement of Psagot on the opposite hilltop. Wasfi Nawajah, a coach in a warm-up suit, complained that his southern West Bank village had no permits to build a gym, while the neighboring Israeli settlement was free to build sports facilities and expand.

“The Palestinians are only suffering from the peace process. The situation is tough. Many people are losing hope,’’ Nawajah said.

A poll this month by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research found a nearly 10-percentage-point jump over the last three months of Palestinians who say the two-state solution is no longer viable. Support for a one-state solution has advanced in the same period to 36% from 32%.

“This is a major change, a significant erosion in the viability of the two-state solution,’’ Khalil Shikaki, the director of the polling center, said in a lecture at the Jerusalem Press Club. “Today, we don’t have majority support for the two-state solution. What has gone up is support for the one-state solution.’’

Slackening support can be found in Israel as well as in the incoming U.S. administration. Donald Trump’s nomination of David Friedman, a longtime patron of the Israeli settlement of Beit El, suggests the new administration might no longer champion negotiations toward a Palestinian state as did previous U.S. presidents.

Israeli Education Minister Naftali Bennett, who advocates annexation of 60% of the West Bank and “autonomy on steroids” for Palestinians in the remaining areas, in November declared the end of “the era” of the Palestinian state.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu recently told CBS’ “60 Minutes” that he remains committed to “two states for two peoples,’’ but when he was asked by an Israeli journalist on the eve of the 2015 election whether he expected the creation of a Palestinian state on his watch, he said no. The prime minister and his aides say Israel needs to reach security agreements with surrounding Arab governments before a peace deal with the Palestinians.